Abstract:

In the article, the authors discuss the development of the digital competencies of a school principal who needs to be competitive in the 21st century job context. The relevance of the research associates with the need to build a professional school leader in accordance with the state and public expectations stipulated in the Russian federal project, i.e. ‘Digital Educational Environment’. The authors’ concept bases on the understanding of the vitality of the digital competency for the efficient functioning of a school leader under the current transformation of education, which presumes the transfer from the continuous education to the continuous personal development. The article presents the efficient solutions to the problems of the development of the general digital literacy skills within the professionalism of the manager, and the use of digital competency profiles for the management of the school personnel.

The research questions were:
(1) what the potential is of the key components of the digital competencies of school principals for the professional success of the latter;
(2) What the efficiency (i.e. ‘resultfulness’) is of the professional development programs offered by the regional further training institutions.

The research methodology includes the specially developed sampling toolkit for the elaboration of a model (matrix) of digital competencies for school principals. As a research sample, two regions of the Russian Federation (with the maximum and the minimum number of educational institutions) were selected in each of the eight Russia’s federal districts.

The matrix of the digital competencies of the school principals is method-ologically and practically backgrounded, which aims at the inculcation of the effective target model of the digital educational environment. Recommendations have been developed for the evaluation of the digital competencies and the effectiveness of the activities of school leaders. Furthermore, the authors present the results of the analysis of the digital competencies and their comparability with the Russian professional standard.

Keywords:

School principal, digital competency, soft skills, school leadership, competency development, digital literacy, professional standard, competency matrix.